Newsletter

Rep. Abrams objects to a 'flawed' Georgia assembly

Minority leader in House says Republicans are rushing key issues.

ATLANTA - Republicans running the General Assembly have rushed major legislation through with such short notice that opponents have been unable to react, according to the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives.

House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams told members of the Atlanta Press Club in a Tuesday speech that the rush job used on bills like tax reform and limits on picketing prevented Democrats and the public from analyzing the proposals and offering amendments.

“I find the process to be flawed,” said the Atlanta Democrat. “I think it’s deeply problematic that we’re not allowed to make amendments to the legislation.”

She expressed particular frustration with having just one-hour’s notice before a committee meeting Monday on Senate Bill 469 which would make picketing in front of a residence by organized labor illegal and SB 447 that reduced unemployment benefits. The House Industrial Relations Committee heard testimony from witnesses last week, and its chairman, Rep. Bill Hembree, R-Winston, has said there was ample opportunity for consideration before the vote. Democrats, though, said they had wanted to offer amendments to be voted on, but only one of their members could get to the meeting on such short notice.

“I’m more disturbed by what happened yesterday with 469 and 447 where duly elected members of the General Assembly got no notice and a bill was both introduced and the bill came out in less than 10 minutes,” she said. “Counting on the fact that people didn’t know the meeting was happening, especially when the subject of the meeting was free speech.”

Abrams said she voted for the tax-reform measure despite her qualms over how it was handled because Georgia needed tax changes to spark its economy. She didn’t want to try to block the bill over her objections with the timing.

Her counterpart in the GOP, House Majority Leader Larry O’Neal responded, when told of her comments, that the tax bill only contained proposals that had been debated over recent years in one form or another, meaning there would be no surprises for Democrats.

“I don’t think there’s a single new issue in the tax-reform bill,” he said. “... Stacey Abrams has been intimately involved in just about every one of those issues.”